We do have limits to speech. Already.

Limits to causal reactions and effects. You can scream fire all you want, even in a crowded theater. The moment it causes panic and an event that causes death or injury, that no longer is free speech.

Threatening people's life and limb is banned.

Slander and Libel

Some of these limits are criminal (causing actual harm) while others require civil court actions (Libel). And even there, there are limits in favor of Liberty.

In your example, we have additional protections for children/minors who are unable to discern ill intents of adults taking advantage.

If someone is willfully and willingly lying to deceive that can be both criminal or civil (or both) in nature. We already have laws in place for that. But the ultimate issue here is that you cannot distinguish between the speech "there is a puppy lost" and the kidnapping that follows.

Freedom to express yourself is utmost sacred in our tradition of liberty. BUT you are not free from the consequences, real or imagined. It also means that government controls on speech are few and far between, and are usually tied to courts for adjudication. We still have Time Place and Manner restrictions as much as I think even THOSE are abused at times (e.g. can't play loudspeakers at 3AM)

As a free speech absolutist myself, I don't care if people are so stupid that they believe everything they're being told. The only problem I have is there are people believe the lies and vote.

See my signature for more info. Democracy is the collective stupidity of all of us, telling the rest of us how we ought to be ruled. -

COBOL is easy.

Easy to learn
Easy to program with
Easy to read.

It is very simple. Which is both a strength and its biggest weakness.

The problem is that programs written are NOT structured except the way the guy who wrote the code thought it should be ... if he even thought about it at all.

I was once upon a time hired to convert a COBOL programmed system into an SQL database. The example I use is there was this one proceedure done in COBOL ( take data, modify it this way, output accordingly), literally the same process, but it wasn't a procedure it was coded three different ways. The inputs and outputs should have been the same, they were .... most of the time. And that is why there was this other bit of code checking outputs over there ---->

Also written different ways.

Diarrhea code. They never did get it migrated. The guys who wrote it died and the system died with him. The real fix would have been to have a clean room implementation with three teams, the COBOL team, the API team and the SQL team. But it was a mom and pop shop, and didn't have the funds available which is why the system died when the last of the COBOL coders died.

I was drinking a lot of french press and my cholesterol starting rising fairly dramatically. I've had really good cholesterol numbers my entire life, so this was fairly alarming. I stopped drinking french press and when I had my next test done less than a year later, my cholesterol numbers were back to normal for me. Highly dependent on your individual physiology and the amount of coffee you're drinking, but something to watch out for.

Apparently the paper filters in drip and pour over are effective are effective at blocking the oily compounds that lead to a rise in cholesterol for many people.

I still use my 2010 27" iMac as my main computer at home. It works perfectly well for web browsing and it runs several old apps like Quicken 2007 that I use on a regular basis.

Written on Election Night 2016 by Paul Krugman:

It really does now look like President Donald J. Trump, and markets are plunging. When might we expect them to recover?

Frankly, I find it hard to care much, even though this is my specialty. The disaster for America and the world has so many aspects that the economic ramifications are way down my list of things to fear.

Still, I guess people want an answer: If the question is when markets will recover, a first-pass answer is never.

During Donald Trump's first term, the S&P 500 rose approximately 83%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 73%, and the Nasdaq Composite surged 152%.

My grandfather died at around 90--of lung cancer! He never smoked a single substance in his life, never worked in factories, etc. It was basically random. Near the end, one of the docs asked if he had been exposed to asbestos. He answered "Well, I did go on a school trip to an asbestos mine in 5th grade..."

I'm a neophyte, but there's some interesting information here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Local...

It's easy to tell you haven't used Apple hardware in a long, long time.

Yeah, Siri sucks and Apple's models are behind, but Apple is doing some interesting research and the M chip architecture is very, very good for running local models.

Even if you ignore Apple's own AI software, it's popping up in 3rd party software all over the place, including graphics and video editing.

Yeah, they absolutely are. There are some Local LLM reddit groups where people are doing some neat stuff.

The M* hardware is very impressive.

So, you're equating Sporting engines (aka RACING) with CAFE standards compliant transportation for a mom and her two kids?

And you tell me to piss off?

LOL.

No.

You're not wrong, but you are.

The laws ARE garbage. If a test can be rigged, it will be. This is the nature of how things are. China WILL win, if we continue to regulate ourselves out of competition.

The US has a similar problem, we have CAFE standards that were SUPPOSED to require car manufacturers to increase efficiencies to IMPOSSIBLE levels. The problem is, those rules only applied to "cars". Almost all US car manufacturers have stopped making cars, and the ones they are building are largely big muscle cars, and not fuel efficient ones. Instead, they are building SUVs that aren't "cars" but are classed as "trucks" and exempt, and a few Hybrids that really nobody actually wants.

The law of unintended consequences is undefeated

"There ought to be a law"

Every bad law starts out with "good intentions" as if that was enough. Results don't matter, only the intent. Results can be horrible but if you oppose it, "You want bad things to happen" and are

I don't know anything about comics, but according to Wikipedia (IDW):

Wikipedia also links to IDW Publishing States They Will Definitely Be Around For Another Year

So, it doesn't seem that rosy?